"The second product is often the big product," he said. "Anybody can have a hit, but can you have two? It's very important for CCP right now to make DUST 514 a success. It has a lot to do with the long-term trajectory of the company. We're definitely thinking about that."

Reid says that CCP is not trying to directly compete with MMO industry titans, but is forging its own path with a sustained cult following. He sees DUST 514 as an important step to the growth of the EVE Online universe: "On some level, DUST is a bit of a tracer bullet. A very big tracer bullet, a big investment, but it's a test bed. This could be the beginning of a much more interesting strategy of lots and lots of things joining into Tranquillity, and all being part of that shared economy, those shared politics and that shared universe."